


Tempest Tossed

by tryxchange



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Rare Characters, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-18
Updated: 2016-03-18
Packaged: 2018-05-27 11:58:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6283579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tryxchange/pseuds/tryxchange
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aunt Muriel has had enough. It's time for a change.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Witches live a long time, and Muriel has been around for two Wars, five Ministers, and too many dead family members. It's made her bitter and hard. She's sick of the world she lives in, and sick of the woman she's become, so she packs her bags and moves across the pond. Everyone thinks she's finally gone round the bend, but she's never felt as light as she does the day she steps into the Trans Atlantic Floo for LaGuardia's magical Lev Kauffman wing.

Instead of emerging from the bank of grand fireplaces she's been told to expect, presided over by the ridiculously large portrait of Grand Magister Kauffman, she stumbles through a cloud of smoke and nearly lands on a irritated looking paper pusher. There's no portrait in sight. Alarmed, wand out (she hasn't survived two Dark Lords without retaining some sense of self preservation, after all), she looks around and tries to get her bearings. 

She's indoors, but it's freezing for some reason. She's in a long, open hall. Several fires are spitting and smoking on the edges of the room, and people are falling out of them at unorganized intervals.

"Please lower your wand, madam," the clerk says, his nose rather in the air. "Name?" 

She sniffs back at him and draws herself up, not moving her wand one iota. "Muriel Weasley, and who might you be?"

The clerk actually rolls his eyes at her. "Your way into America, Madam. Perhaps you could find it in yourself to be more polite. Married?"

Muriel is almost shuddering in her outrage, but the horrid little man is right. She really ought to pull herself together at least through customs. Even if American customs is apparently a nasty little hole that bears a great resemblance to a horse barn.

She keeps that thought to herself and answers his impertinent questions. No, not married. No children. Yes, family. No, they're not likely to follow her. Yes, British. She gets a sharp look at that one, and wonders why. Surely they're not still miffed about their revolution; that was hundreds of years ago! 

Finally, the odious clerk hands her a wooden talisman the size of a coin and waves her through the door at the end of the hall.

"Keep that on you at all times, Miss Weasley. We run a tight ship here in New York. Enjoy your stay. There will be a ferry leaving the islands on the hour. Keep your head down, and for heaven's sake put away your wand!"

Muriel sees that the other witches and wizards hurrying through the door have all stashed their wands out of sight. She follows suit with some trepidation and steps through to her first sight of New York City.

She knows at once that something has gone wrong. This is not the city of shining towers she has been expecting. She turns slowly, taking in the harbor with its fleet of canvas sails and the overwhelming stench of fish that easily washes up to where she stands on a little hill several streets away. Towing over the tall ships out in the water is the Lady Liberty, forever welcoming immigrants to the shores of the United States. Only she isn't green at all, she gleams bright copper in the cold winter sun.

Muriel spins. There is a boy selling newspapers on the corner. She snatches one up over his protests and reads with a sinking feeling in her stomach. 

Quant's Quotidian  
The Fifth of February, Eighteen Hundred and Ninety-Two

Muriel lets the boy take the paper back from her nerveless fingers. The Floo malfunctioned. She's in the right city, but the wrong century.


	2. Chapter 2

The last time that Muriel was so uncomfortable, she was camping at the Quidditch Nationals as a much younger woman. She had a similarly shoddy tent then, too. 

The most she can say about her current housing is that at least it's not raining on her. The canvas is so old and worn that her best heating spells stick poorly and only warm the tent by a degree or two. She's been able to charm the uncomfortable camp stool to warm itself when she sits on it, but she's still stuck without any plan in the middle of a field full of desperate and impoverished folk. Most of them speak no English at all, not even the bastardized sort mangled by the Americans. There's unfamiliar magic everywhere. In line at what passes for the luncheon room, she spots a dour looking man with dark skin pass his thumb over a spot on the back of his hand. Immediately, the tiny girl in his arms is entranced by a fountain of bubbles coming from his beard. Muriel smiles involuntarily.

The man catches her watching him and smiles faintly in return. Muriel surprises herself by seeking him out once she has her unappetizing gruel. 

"Hello," she says. "Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Muriel Weasley."

The man nods his head at the chair across from him. "Please sit," he says, in passable but accented English. The baby in his arms makes an unsuccessful grab at his spoon.

"She's very pretty," says Muriel. "How old is she?"

The man grimaces. "I cannot be sure. Perhaps a year? She is not mine. Or rather, she is mine now. Her parents, my sister and her husband, did not make it to America. Ah, my apologies. My name is Hanif-" He stops, grimaces again. "Henry," he pronounces carefully, with a sad glance toward Ellis Island.

"They didn't like Hanif?" Muriel has encountered this a few times in the three days she's been here. The wizards herding people into New York seem to be singularly unable to understand that there are names that don't use the same sounds as English. 

"I don't think they even tried," says Hanif, jiggling the girl in his lap. "This is Dorothy. She is too young to be attached to her old name, so I think it better to give her one that will serve her well in her new country."

Dorothy succeeds in grabbing Hanif's spoon. She waves it in the air with enormous enthusiasm.

"Her father was an Englishman. A lieutenant in your army. He was very good to my family, but there was... Unrest. He and my sister had some warning, so they got S- Dorothy out to me."

Muriel knows about unrest, and seeing the way his fingers tighten around the hem of Dorothy's jacket, she elects to let the matter pass. "Do you know where you're headed?" she asks instead.

Hanif relaxes. "Yes, actually. Lieutenant Gale purchased some land in the West. We're only waiting for the train."

Muriel was aghast. "The train? Are there no portkeys? No floos?"

Hanif cocked his head. "What is a portkey?"

"You know, an object, like an old shoe or a tyre, and you touch it, and it pulls you through here and you come out there? That is, I'm sure I don't really know how it works, but they're terribly useful." She felt flustered, suddenly, under his calm gaze.

"They sound it," he said mildly. "But no, we have no portkeys. And there has been no floo station opened yet in Nid de Moineau, which is the closest city to Lieutenant Gale's land. So we will take the train. And you, Madam Weasley? Where are you heading?"

"Ah. Er, well, I've yet to land on my feet, so to speak. I did not arrive when I thought I did, and as a result, the arrangements I had made fell through." There. That was true enough, but didn't reveal her origins in the future. "No matter," she finished brightly. "I'm certain something will turn up soon."

In truth, she was not nearly as confident as she pretended. Her last three days have not given her an optimistic view of the American magical community's organization. There didn't seem to be anyone competent in charge. There was certainly no one who knew anything about time travel.

Some of her concern apparently leaked through onto her face, because Hanif passed in the middle of trying to convince Dorothy to give up the spoon and said, "Would you care to accompany us to Nid de Moineau? Perhaps you would be able to find something there. We would welcome the company." 

He looked very sad, and this, too, Muriel recognized. Fabian and Gideon were more distant losses than Hanif's sister and brother-in-law, but she still expected them to come around every corner. Perhaps that was what made her agree.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know, this idea just sort of clobbered me.


End file.
